Last week I went raspberry picking. I rode my bicycle up the to the farm we belong to, which is full of green beans and flowers and muddy grass. It was a perfect day for picking--crisp, but not too cold, and the sky was just overcast enough so that the sunlight came through the clouds in shafts of gold, highlighting the purple wild asters, deep yellow goldenrod, and the blood red sumac.
I was standing in the raspberry patch thinking about how happy fall makes me, and how nice it is to be able to ride to the farm and pick fresh food. The only other people picking were an older couple bundled up in worn cardigans and scarves who I guessed were Eastern European as they were speaking what sounded like a Slavic language. I picked contentedly, listening to the rhythm of words I couldn't understand, thinking about what a nice couple-y activity berry picking is.
Which was about the time I looked up and saw the elderly woman throw an empty bucket at the the elderly man, barely missing his head, and walk to other end of the patch, muttering something.
This reminded me of one of my favorite fights between two friends of mine the day they decided that blueberry picking would make a nice wholesome family activity and took their three year old twins to a blueberry patch. One of the kids started melting down and the husband was trying to get him into the car, but the wife kept finding more berries to pick and when they got into the car the kids were crying and the husband was furious. "What's your problem?" she said, and he said, "I've been trying to get the kids in the car for half an hour and every time I looked up all I saw was your butt sticking up out of the patch like a planet."
("A planet?!!" she said to me later.
"At least he didn't say it was blotting out the sun," I said.)
It reminded me that sometimes the things we think are most romantic are best left in our heads or done alone. (Either that or that romance is sometimes at it's best with a little dose conflict.)
Anyway I brought the berries home and boiled them with the last of the summer peaches, an Asian pear, some crabapples from my parents' apple tree and a tablespoon of honey. The result was a sweet, tangy raspberry/peach/apple sauce we've been eating with everything. Liam loves it, and has been having it for breakfast and dessert. (He especially likes it as a topping for the ricotta cheese breakfast bars featured in the Kim Boyce piece I have this month in O.)
Personally, I like to put it in a wine glass, pour in some vodka, garnish with frozen raspberries and sip through dinner. It makes doing laundry more enjoyable.
Cheers!
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